Need Laptop Buying Advice
 

Hey Techies

Need advice for Laptops.

This is for my kids - Grandma is being so nice and buying them for my kids, 13 & 12.

Anywoo - price is about $500. + / -

Want to stay away from Dell, as we have had 2 previously and have had problems w/ keyboards breaking, etc. Like to have something rugged.

The only other parameters would be, high RAM - screen size under 17"

I've been looking on web, but too much conflicting info, thus if U know a good site or
advice

Lastly, what site / store is good to buy from?

Thanks

Rhino

if you can stretch to it, get a macbook for them. Kids especially they will learn the interface more likely to be something they'll use in other devices AND, my teens have had them for years and never once had a virus/spam bogged down internet speed problem. and they visit all kinds of sites and download all kinds of stuff. Compared to my desktop they sometimes use even with protection on it, there is no comparision in hassle free use. good luck.

It is a harware/software issue. PC and mac both use the same hardware, so you gain nothing in reliability from buying a mac. The software is less vulnerable on macs, for a few reasons, the most likely is that 8% of the population is a small target audience when you are trying to F with peoples lives and livelihood. If you install good software for the spam, viruses, and what not you will have just as much reliability. It is my opinion, but I did just spend the last two years of my masters in this area.

As for options for you, most of what is avail. right now is good. Your experience with dell keyboards is something that you will have to realize could be a problem with almost any laptop. With laptops, an integral keyboard sets you up for some potential issues (you are tied to it, not easily replaced but easily supplemented). I would suggest heading over to Bestbuy, playing around with the keyboards, laptops, and whatever, talk to the geek squad to see what they see most on return for repair and what they see least, and try to get on the back to school deal.

both of my Compaq laptops have been workhorses...
(n610c & v6000)

both have had the keyboards replaced, very simple task for the DIY'er.


tim

Don't waste your Grandmas cash on Macs or Sonys both are WAY overpriced. If they don't need gaming quality gear look at the cheap netbooks.

the only problem with the netbook is that they are stressed with Micro. Office files that are large, and they typically have quite small screens. If you were going to use netbooks I would highly suggest that you get acquainted with Google Docs. Otherwise, far all the facebook, aim, web surfing that they might do, they would work fine. at under 400 bucks, they aren't bad either, but you can get nearly double the machine for a fraction of the cost more.

I hear what youre saying, but most adults are careless enough, and when talking about teens - it amplifies significantly. Yes you can teach responsibility but for that age group, forget it. Just saying you can spend a lot of time debugging and troubleshooting their computers.
To the original poster, be sure to talk to some parents with teens about choices also.

I hear you, Bill. I guess the 1000 dollar premium is the killer for most people. You can by 2-3 pc's for the price of a mac. Bring on the crashes and failures :)

By the way, if you are not running a backup of your computer once a week, you need serious mental help. (this is directed at everyone, mac and pc)

just wait till black friday i mean its just a few months away... i got my $500 hp for 278 last year with windows 7 :)

If you wanna reconsider Dell, look on their outlet site. You can pick up a laptop that was ordered but never shipped. Picked up a 15" studio for both my son and daughter two years ago for Christmas. Picked up a 17" studio for myself just over a year ago when my old desktop finally died.

Why a 17" laptop? Are you planning to just keep it in the house? If you are you might want to consider a desktop. You can get 20-22 inch monitor and a good computer for 500 bucks. Or you can buy 2 netbooks on sale for about 250 and get them each their own.

Im done giving my two cents, any way here's a website that will show you a bunch of deals if your cheap like me and never want to pay full price. http://dealnews.com/ Just keep an eye on the laptop section you can probably find a nice 17". Also, this time of year bestbuy and other stores have good back to school deals. You should be able to get a free printer on top of a 50-100 dollar discount.

Just to let you know Ive never seen a laptop that doesnt have sometype of hardware failure after a few years. and yes even apple's products fail, they're the same exact thing underneath their shiny exteriors.



I must be mental then, but I run a boot drive and a storage drive. I'm assuming whatever happens will mess up the boot drive and leave my storage drive alone.

whatever you decide, buy from Costco. I will never buy any electronics from any place else.

always have an external hard drive to back up to as well.

I'm not being a prick to you, just trying to illustrate the reasons you may be mental...

If you have a hard drive go bad (plenty of us have had this happen, I am sure of that), whatever is on it is pretty much lost (unless you want to pay some big dollars to recover it in the case of a mechanical failure). If you have a backup drive, you have it stored in two places. One fails, you have another. If you have a virus and lose everything, it is backed up. In the case where you have two drives, one for the OS and one storage, you may be less susceptible to viruses, but still vulnerable to mechanical failures of the drive. Backing up on an external drive saves you from this, especially if your external is only hooked up during backup and you have run a malware/antivirus sweep prior to backing up.

There are a lot of solid state parts in computers, fans, drives, dvd drives, and other like devices are not. There tendency to fail is much higher.

And as for 17" laptops, I take mine everywhere, and I am very glad I went big. It is awesome, and I am not convinced a tiny weeny 13-15" would save me so much weight my life would be easier. I watch movies on it all the time, and it has great graphics for that.


As for processors, there are a couple things to know. There is processor speed, bus speed of the processor, cache (L1, L2, etc), architecture ( think nanometer, 35, 45, 65, 75nm) and number of cores . Way back when, intel came around with the pentium 4. At the time they were competing against Mac and AMD for supremacy, and they were loosing. There was two different trains of thought. 1st: make the processor fast, but dont worry about getting information in and out of the processor. 2nd: get the information in and out fast, worry about processor speed after. The 2nd ended up winning, and that is why you dont see 3.8 GHz processors anymore (they are all sub 2.6GHz for the most part). Where the battle is won is in the bus speed (measured in either GHz or GTs, same unit value). Cache is a way of letting the processor work from within without relying on the RAM, and the architecture is related to heat and energy. the lower the number is, the less heat and energy. 35-65nm are pretty standard now. The number of cores is and isn't important. If you have a slow bus, having more cores doesn't really help you. its like having 2 assembly line workers working on a line that doesn't get enough product for the two to be there.

If I were going to look for a computer now, bus speed would be my major concern, then cores, then speed 2.2GHz or higher. I am going to get the dork out of here, ask questions if you have any

My only advice; don't buy a dell unless you like downtime and repairs/exchanges.

pricewatch.com

Crap I read the OP's post wrong anyway he said under 17". Thought he said he wanted 17". It's not really the weight, but the size that to me makes them impractical. My 10" netbook is wider than most my desks in my college lecture halls. 17" wont fit in most backpacks either.

Ya my storage drive can fail, but its data I can live without just a bunch of movies, music, video games etc. The only important stuff to me is college papers and I always keep a copy on a flash drive or saved to my email.

To the OP this one looks like a good deal http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-AS573...70911711824542
about 330 shipped form walmart

I've owned an acer for about a year had no problems what so ever with it anyone else have experience with Acers?

You can get a really good HP for around $500

To All

Thanks for info - I will review & advise what actions taken.

Thanks again

If you would like to run microsoft's windows software, I recommend you get a sony vaio generally offered with a great warranty and widely available . If you wish to run Apple's macintosh software then you have no choice but to get a macbook. Two of the best laptops and operating systems!

What everyone said about laptops/netbooks/iMacs, etc.

My two cents:
I have had a netbook for about a year after my laptop went kaput and noticed and unexpected pro: I don't really spend a ridiculous amount of time just surfing the web or in front of the screen. Sound is decent at best and watching videos and that kind of thing isn't very practical. Seems like a bad quality to have, but I check my e-mail, write papers, and then am done. If I wanted to watch a movie then I go watch one. I'm on the computer all day and used to find myself playing games on my laptop when I got home. I don't do that now because I can't. Sort of a self regulating system to keep my electronic world a little smaller.

All the other stuff applies- netbooks run longer, seem to be more durable (to me), much slower at running programs, have small screens and are difficult to upgrade, no CD drive.

Just something to think about what they need/want out of their computer. I find that others are a little awkward with my netbook because it's too big to be cool and too small to be stunning. I like it and don't need any more so it works well.

Teenagers are going to want portability most I'm imagining. I'd just walk them into Best buy and have them look at everything they can to guage if they want size, tablet, etc. You can buy almost anything you really want for under $500.

If I had to buy a laptop for a teenager, I'd go netbook with maxxed out ram and a hard case , and an external monitor/keyboard/mouse - which all can be had for about $500. Expect that you're going to reformat this laptop more than a few times as they learn how to push boundaries on a laptop with their friends. I guess for the most part, this will be a learning experience for the kids, don't expect this laptop to go all the way through college with them.

Best of luck looking, interested to see what they get!